Elle Bishop 1 : The Resurrection of Elle Bishop
by youlately
Summary: Elle Bishop has been shot by Noah Bennett and is dying. Elle and Sylar are trapped on a cold beach. After having vacillated between good and evil Sylar chooses to kill Elle Bishop. Yet what we have seen may not be the whole story. What is Elle's destiny?
1. Chapter 1

**The Resurrection of Elle Bishop **

**Chapter 1**

**By**

**Youlately**

**(Authors note: **I reloaded this revised version by chapters 1-6 because I did it incorrectly the first time I tried - Thanks for the help this is my first fanfiction story ever posted)

Season 3 (This alternative story still preserves the current story line of Sylar killing Elle right through to the end of Season 4)

Time – Place-Setting: Season Three- Elle's death scene: This scene takes place on the beach.

Just hours before Elle and Sylar found themselves being trapped on the beach, Elle and Sylar had been tracked by an angry Noah Bennett hell-bent on killing them both. While standing in the window of a house where Sylar and Elle were talking and making plans for a new and better life, Noah shot Elle with a high powered rifle in the left hip. Still in pain from a previous gunshot to her right arm Elle is now seriously injured and severely compromised. Sylar and Elle escape and go through a series of discussions and vacillations of good verses evil. In the end despite already having absorbed her power of blue lightening; Sylar still chooses to kill Elle that night on the beach, and burn her remains. This story begins moments before her painful and unnoticed death.

Chapter 1

Elle Bishop's Death

"I don't know if I can go any further!" Elle cried out.

Sylar frustrated and angry let Elle's injured body collapse on the cold wet sand. The wind from the ocean was frigid and Sylar could see Elle tremble and shake in the night time breeze. She rolled to her side to take the pressure off of her injured hip. Her business suit was covered in wet sand, and the waist of her white blouse was soaked with red blood. Elle struggled to sit up, and put hand pressure on her bleeding wound.

"He's going to find us you know." Elle blurted out in a panicked voice. "We're never going to be safe from him unless we kill him first!" She shouted angrily looking into Sylar's eyes.

Sylar took a moment to weigh her plea. This was not what he wanted. No matter how hard he tried, there seemed to be no escaping his destiny of endless killing. Whether for power, for pleasure or to save himself, the forces of the world have always conspired to make him a killer. Sylar looked at Elle's frail body and squinted.

"I'm sorry Elle, but there is no we. Not anymore. I thought it was all going to be different; that I was going to be different, but I see now how wrong I was." Sylar's eyes turned cold as he cocked his head to one side and started to raise a finger.

Tears filled Elle's gray eyes, and her mouth trembled as she tried to speak. Her heart welled up inside her throat and her mouth contorted as she silently cried. Elle looked up and gasped out to the sky:

"I have no one. I'm all alone. Please Gabriel, not here, not like this !" Elle stopped cold as she looked into Sylar's face and a wave of futility washed over her. Elle now knew that her short life was truly going to come to an end.

"You're not a monster Gabriel. I don't want to die."

"That's where your wrong Elle. I am a monster, and you helped make me what I am today." Sylar says pointing his finger at Elle's head. "I'll never forget you Elle. Who knows… perhaps in a different life if there is such a thing?..." He says shrugging his shoulders.

Sylar twisted his hand with the intention of searing Elle's skull open, suddenly a white light flashed and for a split second the beach became bright as daylight. Sylar shielded his eyes and squinted to see.

"Gabriel stop!" Demanded a loud voice a short distance from behind Elle.

Sylar was disoriented, he dropped his finger and stepped back and glared into the darkness trying to glimpse the personage of the voice.

Still recovering from the blinding light, Sylar can only make out a silhouette of a man who calmly steps forward and kneels beside Elle. He cradles her limp body in his arms and turns to look at Sylar.

"I can't harm you Gabriel, I'm not here to fight you."

"Then what?" Asks Sylar.

"You don't want to do this."

"Oh I think I do. Who are you?" Sylar says in an authoritative and perturbed tone.

"I know it means little to you now, and you won't believe me, but I am now and always have been your friend, and I'm here to help you." Said the stranger holding Elle's failing body. "my god" He whispers almost silently. "You're so cold!" He says pressing Elle's head into her hair.

"She's dying Gabriel. I need your help to save her."

"I know she's dying that's what I'm here for, and my name isn't Gabriel. Now WHO ARE YOU!"

Elle twists her head and looks at the man whose warm body is sustaining her with warmth.

"I know you." Elle says in a gravelly voice. "You worked for my father."

With this news, Sylar is noticeably agitated.

Quickly the stranger turns to Sylar and in a warm and calm voice he says.

"I really am here to help you Gabriel, I'm not with the company. I never was, at least not in the way you think."

Sylar begins to raise his hand.

"You're going to have to do better than that. " Sylar again squints his eyes trying to take in what the stranger has said. "You say you are my friend, but I don't know you, I've never seen you before this very moment."

"Time and space are not what they used to be Gabriel, you know that's true, you've traveled through time already."

Sylar cocks his head and contemplates that statement. Then in a calmer voice again asks:

"Why do you call me that name? That isn't my name! My name is Sylar."

The man nods. "Sylar then… but it is not how I know you."

Without warning Elle's body begins to shiver, then there is an alarming jerk. Elle grabs at the stranger's arm. She convulses slightly, and a look of terror fills her face. Groggy and shaking she gasps into his ear. "Help me."

Not daring to look at Sylar for fear of death, Elle nuzzles her body into the only source of warmth on the beach. Her vision is burry, the words she hears are now nonsensical and disconnected. Her thoughts seem separated from her body. Elle is going into shock.

"Sylar! We can talk later but for the sake of any feeling you may once have had for Elle, please I'm begging you to stop this and help me now. She's going to die even if you don't kill her."

Sylar turns his head to look at Elle.

"You're body regenerates Gabriel. Hers doesn't. Your empathy, your feelings are buried inside you because you can't die. But try to remember, try to understand what it's like to be in pain, to be vulnerable, try to feel what she's feeling. Can't you feel her pain, her desperation…can't you feel her dying? Have you lost all of your humanity?"

Sylar blinks as if looking at lifeless statue on the ground. Sylar contemplates the stranger's words. It was true he thought. 'I don't feel human anymore.'

"And why exactly am I saving her?" Asks Sylar as he points his finger to the stranger's head.

"For god's sake Gabrel!" He shouts with tears in his voice. "She's just a kid. She's been lied to, manipulated, and used her whole life. Yet out of that cold jail-cell of a life, she found a portion of her heart to care for you, to like you, to love you. Can't you do the same for her!"

"She and Noah studied me like a caged specimen. She used me by making me think she really liked me!" Sylar's voice was now becoming unhinged. He closed his hand into a fist. "I should kill her just for that."

"Think about it Gabriel. Noah is trying his best to kill Elle. It wasn't Elle who betrayed you it was Noah. Did it ever occur to you for a minute that Elle has never been in control of her life?" He said in desperation.

"And just how do you know all of this?" Asked Sylar.

"I have a gift Gabriel. That's why I am here at this exact time, in this place at this moment. I can see alternative futures for people with special powers. More precisely I can see intersections or congruency's where I can interact and change their lives for a better purpose." The man looks straight at Sylar's face unflinching. "My name is Cyrus, and I have seen your future Sylar, believe me when I say you could do better than living and dying alone and unloved."

Sylar pauses for a moment and asks: "How do you mean better."

"You have gifts like no man has or will ever see Gabriel. I have seen your future, and it lacks a purpose, you have no vision. Did it ever occur to you that your destiny is up to you? But this is where it changes for better or for the worse. Right here, right now!"

Elle's body again twitches and shakes and Cyrus desperately pulls her closer and tighter, and whispers into her ear: "You have to fight, you have to live. Humanity depends on you Elle. It all depends on you!"

Sylar smiles a knowing smile.

"You love her don't you? This isn't about me at all. It's all about Elle!"

"Humanity needs Elle more than you could ever imagine Gabriel. The world needs her, and the world needs you not to kill her. I'm begging you to listen and put aside your craving for killing. Yes I know about that too!"

Ignoring his plea Sylar demands coldly: "And you fell in love how exactly?"

"I've seen Elle's future Gabriel. She is not the girl you see here. She has a life with meaning. It is the future Elle that I … I have come to save. It is a future that she never dared dream for herself. Her father created her for his own purpose. Now you can give her a new life Gabriel, free of manipulation and duplicity."

"And what of me? What's my future?"

"I'll tell you Gabriel. I'll tell you what I know, but right now Elle needs you." Cyrus said looking back at Elle's colorless face.

"Just a few drops of your blood on her wounds could speed her recovery. Your blood can heal Gabriel. It may be your greatest gift of all!"

Sylar thinks about this last piece of news as thought he had just learned the combination of a safe full of money.

"Well that's new. I think I want to see this." Sylar says as he kneels on Elle's side.

Sylar unwraps Elle's arm from the sling and with a gesture he tears the bandage from her arm. With a focused intensity Sylar uses his power to slice his thumb and reopen Elle's wound. He presses his bleeding thumb into her wound and his blood merges with hers.

In less than a minute Elle's face regains a faint amount of color. She opens her eyes and weakly recoils from the sight of Sylar grinning above her.

"Welcome back from the dead Elle. Have a nice trip?"

"There's more Gabriel. Her hip is shattered. She can never have children unless you fix it."

Sylar looks at Cyrus as though to ask a question, but Elle grips Sylars arm in desperation and pulls him closer.

Tears fill Elle's eyes: "Please Gabriel, do this. It hurts so much!"

Sylar does nothing but study Elle's hip wound, and Elle awkwardly looks at Cyrus.

"You know how to fix her don't you Gabriel? It was your first gift wasn't it?" Cyrus asked.

"You have always had the gift of fixing broken things."

Cyrus looked right at Gabriel and put his hand on Sylar's arm. "She's just a kid. Don't take this away from her."

With a jerk Sylar quickly pulls his arm away. Then more calmly repositions himself above Elle.

Sylar pauses a moment, and then straddles Elle's body. He places his bloody hand on her hip and looks inside her body.

"You didn't tell me everything did you." Sylar says calmly turning to the stranger with a sly smile.

"There are things you aren't telling me Cyrus." Sylar says pressing on Elle's shattered side. Elle gasps sharply in pain.

"You're going to be alright Elle, your bones are going to heal, I can see it." Sylar reassures her, as he brushes her cheek with his bloody hand.

Elle for the first time in hours feels warmth inside her body, quickly it spreads to her arms and legs, and her body is soon a mass of prickly pins and needles as feeling begins to return to her limbs.

Elle looks into Sylar's face and says nothing. She struggle to croak out the words Thank You, but just grasps his arm as he brusquely turns away.

Turning to the stranger Sylar says: "Now tell me everything."

Cyrus gently lays Elle down and turns to Sylar.

"Perhaps it's best I show you." Says Cyrus as he grips Sylar's right arm in his left hand and then placing his right hand on Sylar's head Cyrus closes his eyes. Soon the visions of Sylar's past and future start to pour into Sylar's head. Sylar sees his life, his childhood, his mother. Then Sylar once again feels him self plunge the scissors into his mother's chest and watches the life drain from her eyes. Sylar pulls back.

A voice inside his head reassures him. It is Cyrus's voice speaking to him: "Gabriel, your mother's death was an accident. But it haunts you to this day. If you kill Elle it would be no accident, and that action, that memory would poison your consciousness forever. It would be unbearable for you." As Sylar hears the words he again sees the stream of images that is his life.

Sylar sees his life unfold. It unfolds exactly as it had been with no changes. Sylar pushes the stranger back screaming.

"No you lied, you lied! I am a monster."

Sylar jumps to his feet and looks down at Elle. In a rage he raises his finger and without hesitation slices open Elle's head as she screams and goes limp. Sylar looks around and sees no one else. The beach is empty, he is alone. With tears in his eyes he gathers Elle's lifeless body into his arms and sobs.

Thirty feet away Elle clings to the stranger named Cyrus who is quickly pulling her away, half dragging her, Cyrus pushes Elle into the dark shadows of the hillside on the abandoned beach.

"What is he doing?" Elle demands looking back at Sylar grasping at air.

"He has seen the only future I can show him. He's right Elle I cannot see an alternative future for Sylar that I can change. So I showed him the one future that brought me here and now."

"What's that. What did he see?" Elle demands pulling on the man's arm.

"Your death Elle, your death. Even now he thinks he is killing you, and since I was not in the future vision of your death, Sylar has absolutely no recollection of me ever being here."

Elle looked back at the sobbing man on the beach holding nothing but sand and air in his clutching arms.

Tears filled Elle's eyes, her throat tightens with the feeling of her own beating heart choking her words as she spoke.

"You mean I was supposed to die."

"Yes"

"And you had no idea if you could save me because you couldn't see a …. intersection?"

"A congruency… I'm sorry Elle I only saw your death."

"And if I had died would anyone have cared?" Elle said biting her lower trembling lip, not wanting to hear what she already knew.

"No" He said hesitantly. "In the turmoil of Angela's takeover of the company… no one notices…no one asks. "

Elle dropped to her knees and cried. She pounded the sand and pulled at her hair. "You should have let me die! I don't fit in this world." She pleaded.

"I know" Cyrus says kneeling by her. "There is a price to pay for the things you have done. If you want a different future, the future I once saw, a future other than what you have seen on this beach, then there is a penance to pay."

Elle looked up at Cyrus's face. "A penance? There can be a penance for me?" Elle said angril Do you even know the things I've done?"

"Better choices mean a better life Elle. And you need to start making them right now because if we don't find out why, your going to be murdered in less than two days."

Elle stopped cold. "But you just saved me!"

"Every new future leads to new interactions. I have seen this death of yours many times, a vendetta for killing a man in his pub. A man with friends in low places."

A gentle hand reached down and touched Elle's shoulder. Elle jerked around suddenly to see an old man smiling at her. He seemed gentle and kind but he looked tired and bone-weary. In an Irish accent he speaks to Elle: "Its time to go lass." He says with a sad smile.

As he touched her head a flash of light blinded Elle. The smell of the beach was soon replaced by the smell of stale beer and dust.

When Elle's eyes cleared she could instantly tell she was somewhere she had been before. Somewhere she did not want to be.

"How did we get here!" Elle demanded.

"Its time darlin." Said the old man as he removes his hand from Elle's shoulder.

"I don't want to be here, I can't be here! This isn't safe, this isn't where we should be!" Elle said in a panic.

"You're wrong Elle. Did you think changing a life is all done in one finger snap and then everything is alright? You made a mess of your life, and if we do nothing about it make no mistake, you will be murdered. Shot in the head without any warning."

Elle reacted with a panicked look and a harried voice.

"This is where I killed a man. Right here in this bar. If his friends find me they'll kill me. Do you understand. I would have to kill again to save myself. Please please! I don't want that. I don't want to be here. " Elle says in a panic stricken voice.

"Elle look at me" Cyrus says holding Elle's scared face. "Your right. The people here mean to kill you. The man you killed was in his own way a good man, and he had friends. People who would avenge his death by killing you. " He says holding her squirming body tighter. "You're right, they truly want to kill you, and if we do absolutely nothing they will kill you. Holding you now I can see it. You have less than 2 days to live. "

"But you said you see intersections. You know places where you can change things. You can change things right?"

"I don't know Elle. When it comes to your life there are no congruences that I can see."

"What! Why!"

"I don't know? All I know is I have seen your alternative futures, and I have no clue as to how to alter them."

"Then why are we even here?"

"Because if we don't make our own fate, you will be dead. I can change your future, but I can't bring you back to life. Do you understand that? I promised Edward I would bring you here if he helped me save you from Sylar. That is the bargain I made. Their going to hear you out, they won't kill you while you're under Edward's protection."

"I don't understand? Why would they listen to me?" Elle says in a panic.

"Because I told them the truth, that the world needs you, humanity needs you. "

Elle cocked her head and looked at Cyrus as though he were crazy.

"I don't think you have the right girl. Claire is the chosen one. Do you know anything about me at all?" Asked Elle as she stepped back looking for an exit.

"I killed a man, I killed a good man right here for absolutely nothing. I killed Caitlan's brother, for no other reason than I could."

"Elle! Elle! Are you sorry?" Blurted Cyrus.

Elle stopped cold.

"Are you sorry that you killed that man for no reason other than self hatred?"

Elle's mouth began to quiver. "I'd take it all back if I could." She looks at the floor. "But you already said not even you can bring the dead back to life. No one's going to forgive me for this. We should have never come here." Elle says despondently.

"Running is no answer lass, you can't hide from yourself." Said Edward calmly. Tell her Cyrus, tell her." He said pausing. "She has everything to die for and nothing to live for. Tell her now before my niece sees her like this. I've had a belly full of killing to last a lifetime."

Cyrus looked at Elle, and pulls her close to him.

Elle's forehead was now touching his head. Elle looked up at the man that she only briefly ever saw at _The Company,_ she saw a softness in his eyes she had never seen before. All she could salvage from her runny nose and swollen eyes was a pathetic and weak: "You told Sylar I save the world. Is that true?"

"No I said you save humanity, there's a difference."

"So I have a purpose, a reason to be alive?" She asked earnestly.

The man held Elle in his arms and whispered to her:

"If only you could see what I have seen Elle."

" Six months ago I touched you hand at the water fountain. It was there that I saw it. For the first time ever I saw a future for you that was hopeful, beautiful, a future with love and contentment. It is a beautiful life. A good life. I could see it as if I was standing next to you. You have a son, he is strong and athletic. He makes you laugh. And then there is your daughter. She is so beautiful, so pretty and she has your eyes, your gray piercing eyes and blonde hair. If you could just see how happy your children make you, you would fight with every cell in your body to stay alive to see it." Cyrus squeezed his strong hands on her tiny shoulders and then held her out at arms length.

"The girl I see here is pretty, but the woman in my visions, the woman that is you is beautiful. Beautiful because she is filled with love."

Elle's face crinkles with doubt. "I can't imagine that life." Elle says clinging to Cyrus. "I don't deserve that life."

"Not yet lass, not yet, but you will." Says Edward. "Everyone deserves a second chance at love."

"Elle I need you to promise you won't use your power to harm anyone, even if they intend to kill you Elle. You have to trust me. You have to have faith in me. I am telling this to you now because…"

"We have visitors."

A chill went up Elle's spine.

_Chapter 2 (Elle Bishop is Death) _


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**The Resurrection of Elle Bishop **

_**You Are What You Do: Elle Bishop is Death**_

By Youlately

Elle stood frozen. She instantly recognized the voice of the woman who entered the room. It was Caitlan the sister of the man Elle had murdered, a man whose name she could barely remember. He was a man she did not know, and did not care to know. He was as meaningless to her as a cockroach, and she had snuffed him out with as little remorse. If not for her father making her fill out bothersome field reports, Elle would not have cared that this woman's brother's name was Rick, or that he was a good man.

Elle tried to conceal the nervous sparks of blue lightening that rolled like static off of her palms. Cyrus slipped his hands down to cover hers. He looked Elle in the eyes. She remembered his words: "Do not use your power Elle, even if they mean to kill you."

Elle turned to meet her accusers.

"Aye an so ya have returned. I didn't think you had the brass." She said with a cold edge to her voice.

"If I had me way, you'd already be dead where ya stand." She said with hatred in her voice.

Two men pulled out two chairs from a table and made Elle and Cyrus sit down as she came up behind Elle and spoke.

"This man of yours tells me you have something to say. Edward vouches for him. He seems to me to be a good man, a kind man. Not someone that I'd of thought would be with the likes of you!" She said bitterly.

"Edward tells me there are things bigger here than the death of my brother. A week ago I would have told him there is nothing bigger, but then I saw the end of the world. I was there and I saw the death of every man, woman, and child on the planet. So now I'm here waiting for you to tell me what you have to do with this and how you're going to stop it?"

she said with hostility.

Elle looked at the angry woman and closed her eyes.

"I don't know? I wish I did, but you have seen more than I know. I, I don't even know what you're talking about?" Elle paused.

"I came to tell you that I'm sorry Caitlan. That I'd give anything to undo the things I've done." Elle continues quietly in a whisper. "But I can't undo them. And I can't forget them. And I can't live with them." Tears fill Elle's eyes.

"This man of yours says you save humanity… I guess that trumps the death of my brother?" Caitlan says in a frustrated voice.

"I don't know where these powers come from, but I know it is people like you in the future that destroy the world and poison the air with death."

"Cyrus says you are our best hope. I just can't help but think somehow that this world would be better off without you and your kind."

Elle uncomfortable in her own skin squirms in her chair.

You say you're sorry. That you feel bad for killing my brother? Cyrus says you have to save the world. Well I guess that means I can't kill you." She stops talking and pulls Elle's hair back and looks her in the face.

"I can't kill the woman who has the save the world. But as far as you being sorry, you can stuff it. So go save the world princess, but as far as I'm concerned, your words are shite to me." She said walking out the door. "After you save the world you come back and apologize. Then we'll see how sorry you really are."

Elle's head drops to the table. She is sobbing with grief.

"I can't do this! I can't!" Elle runs to the door sobbing, and enters the street.

END of Scene 2

_Chapter 3 (Act of Contrition)_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

**The Resurrection of Elle Bishop: **_**Act of Contrition**_

**By**

**Youlately**

Elle ran wildly down the street sobbing uncontrollably. With every footfall on the hard cobblestones, her shoes wobbled and grew weaker. Finally Elle's shoes gave out and Elle stops in exasperation. Elle is is several blocks from the Pub where she killed a man, not far enough for her liking. Elle sees an old wooden bench up against the building, and she sits down panting and angry, holding her broken shoes Elle has no idea what to do. Spent and exhausted, Elle pulls her feet up and curls up on the end of the bench, exhausted she gives in to her broken and battered body and puts her arms around her legs, tucks her head down and leans against the wall.

From up the street she hears the footsteps and clamoring of children. They are a group of kids leaving the church at the end of the block. Choir practice is over and the children run home to their dinners. Elle realizes that she is starving. She can smell the air filled with the aroma of fried potatoes, fish, and meat pies. Elle closes her eyes and leans back against the wall. She is so tired that she would rather rest than eat.

As their many feet pass her by, Elle barely notices the pair of shiny black shoes on the feet of a little girl across the street. Behind her is a pair of men's feet in sandals. Elle pays no attention to them. Then she sees the little girl is formally dressed in a black velvet dress with a black ribbon in her hair. The girl walks directly towards her. No older than 4 or 5 she surprises Elle by coming straight for her. Without hesitation the little girl climbs up on the bench and clings to Elle and nuzzles into her side.

Startled by her warm little body Elle coos half crying: "Oh oh Ok … ?" She says in a questioning way. "Are you OK little girl?" She asks as the little girl reached around and hugs Elle.

Elle puts her arm around the little girl as she nuzzles closer and the girl grips Elle even more tightly.

"You look sad." The little girl says with her head under Elle's arm.

"I guess I am." Elle responds trying hold back a sniffling nose. "You're very kind to notice."

"I'm sad too." The girl says in a whispered choking voice.

"You are? But your so dressed up and so pretty. What's you name?"

"Grace" She said.

"Did you come from a party Grace?" Elle asked.

"No. I came from my dad's funeral."

Elle slowly sat upright and looked at the pretty young girl.

"Oh sweety I am so sorry. I didn't know. I can see now that you've been crying too." Elle said brushing the little girl's hair from her eyes. "You have such beautiful gray eyes…" Elle's heart seemed to stop. Elle looked into the little girl's wet gray eyes and froze.

"Grace where's your mommy? We should make sure she knows where you are!"

"You're my mommy." Grace said in a muffled sob.

Elle put her two hands over her own mouth and inhaled deeply. Then she put her hands on the small girl's shoulders and said: "I can't be your mommy Grace, that's silly. I don't have any children. So where is your mommy she'll be worried about you?" Asked Elle hesitantly.

"I can't stay long mommy. Gabriel says we have to leave soon. He says I have to tell you something."

Elle's heart froze. Her body turned to ice at the name. With her mouth agape Elle swallowed hard and tried to act calm. Only a moment before and across an entire ocean Sylar had tried to murder Elle, and would have succeeded if Cyrus hadn't tricked him with a vision. The thought of Sylar being here so quickly terrified Elle.

"Gabriel is here?" Asked Elle with a quaver in her voice.

"Can't you see him? He's right there." Grace said pointing to the other side of the street.

"No I can't see him honey." Elle said as calmly as she could. Elle knew Gabriel had gained many powers, it was now apparent he had also acquired invisibility. But why was he here, and why show her this child. Immediately Elle began doubting that any of it was even real. Like Sylar was she only holding a phantom memory?

"Gabriel says you can't see him yet."

"Sweety are you sure Gabriel is here?"

"Yes he brought me back to tell you something."

" Back? Back from…. ? What dear, what did he tell you to say?" Elle said brushing her cheek.

"Gabriel says if you don't make good choices, I'll never be born." Said Gracie with tears welling up.

Elle pulled the girl close to her. "Oh baby, sweety how can any of this be?" Elle asked rhetorically squeezing the trembling girl firmly.

"Are you real? Are you really here?"

"Yes mommy, I really am. Don't you know me?"

"Oh honey I want to believe it, I want you to be mine so much, but how can this be happening? This can't be happening."

"Gabriel brought me back to tell you that I won't be born if you don't make good choices!"

"I don't understand?" Elle says looking for Sylar.

"Why are you doing this?" Elle yelled to the street. "This is too cruel even for you! What do you want Sylar. Please just tell me. Show me, but don't do this to me. … don't do this." She said clutching Gracie.

"Gabriel says time and space isn't what it used to be. What does that mean mommy?"

"What?" Elle realized Cyrus had said the same thing on the beach when she was going into shock.

"Mommy I can't stay. We have to go. Gabriel says we have to go now."

"Gracie you said you came from your dad's funeral? Who is your dad? How does he die?"

"He died saving us mommy. Aunt Claire tried to help but she was too late."

"I don't understand?" Elle said still looking for Sylar.

"I have to go mommy, Gabriel says we have to go! Be good mommy, be good, I love you so much!"

Elle tightened her grip on Grace, but it was for nothing. Like Sylar on the beach, she found herself clutching nothing but air. Elle's face contorted as a silent scream left her mouth, her throat was aching with her heart swelling in her neck.

Elle looked down where Gracie had been and there was nothing but a piece of folded paper. It was a funeral program. The year was almost 7 years away but the name left Elle in a state of sheer panic. The man who died saving Elle and Grace, the man who was Gracie's father was Cyrus. Elle dropped to her knees on the hard cobblestones. She lifted the paper in her hands. "Why? Why God? How can this be happening? Why me? Kill me if you have to, but don't do this to me! I can't bear it! I can't bear it! He dies for me? Why? " She sobbed.

Crumpled on all fours Elle remained in the street silent trying to deny it was real. Yet in her hand was the funeral program of her future husband: The man who saved her from death twice and now would at some future time save her again by somehow sacrificing his own life. And Sylar? What evil twisted game was he playing?

A church bell rang out, and Elle looked up. It was the church where the kids had been having choir practice. Elle pulled herself up and ran in her bare feet up the stone steps and entered the church.

It was quiet and Elle could smell incense and candles. She could hear the echoes of her own voice when she called out to God.

"I don't understand? Why me? Why save me to torture me with a life I haven't even lived?" Elle said lying across the steps to the altar.

Elle caught her breath and tried to compose herself.

"I don't know this man Cyrus. I know he loves a woman that I have not even become. I know he is a good man, and I know that I am not a good person. How can I be a good mother?" Elle lifts her head to the cross above the altar.

"If you have any mercy at all, if you truly are watching over us, then I am begging you to take me instead of Cyrus. He'll be a better mother and father than I could ever be. I am begging you with my soul to take me. Let Cyrus live."

"If this is all real I thank you for this gift God, but if this is a trick, a false memory I swear I will show you what evil truly is!" Elle puts down her head. "Forgive me. Please God. I can't stand this life anymore." Elle prostrated and tired weakens. "But how can you forgive me knowing all of my sins, when Caitlan can't forgive me for just one of my many moments of selfish hatred? What penance is there that I can do to have your forgiveness? I'll do anything. Just tell me! "

Elle was unaware that she was not alone. A slight creaking sound came from the confessional at the side of the church. A door opened and a priest began to walk towards Elle.

"I don't think you understand child." Said the priest.

Elle wiped tears from her eyes and looked at the priest. He looked familiar.

"Do you know what a penance is child?" He asked.

Elle wiped her nose across her sleeve and shook her head sideways.

"Do you think God doesn't know a truly contrite heart from deception?"

The priest pulls Elle to her feet by her hands and looked at her disheveled state.

"God has already forgiven you. All you had to do was ask." He spoke quietly in her ear.

"So we do a penance to be forgiven by others? By the people we have hurt?"

"Whether your enemies forgive you or not is between them and God. You can't change their heart. It is their choice. They have free will just as you do."

"So why do a penance at all? Why am I here then?" Asked Elle

"Because child, you haven't forgiven yourself. And until you do, you will never feel worthy of god's forgiveness."

"I killed a man father. I killed a man not three blocks from here for no other reason than to watch him die. I am not a good person. How can I live with that?"

"God works in mysterious ways. Don't you know he has a purpose for you Elle?"

Elle looked up at the priest's familiar face.

"How did you know my name?"

"I know your name Elle Bishop because up until a few moments ago I was going to forsake my vows and leave the priesthood."

Elle hesitiated. "What has that got to do with me?"

"Because the man you killed was my brother."

Elle felt a chill deep in her marrow. She stepped back half tripping on the altar.

" These powers, these unnatural powers have caused nothing but death and pain in the world Elle. These are powers that mortal man was never meant to have." The priest said raising his voice.

"I have seen these powers destroy lives. I felt that you and the others like you were of the devil himself. So I was going to forsake my vows and find you Elle Bishop. I was going to find you and kill you, and anyone like you that got in my way."

Elle froze in his arms.

"I see now that God has other plans for us both." He said looking down at Elle. "Do you feel it?"

Elle felt a wave of relief sweep across her body. It was like a weight being lifted from her chest. Elle looked up at the priest who she now realized looked familiar because he resembled his brother Rick, the man she had killed.

"I can't bring your brother back father. "

"My sister says she has seen the end of humanity at the hands of people with abilities like yours. My brother would be the first to have risked his life to save the world. If you want to avenge his name, you will put a stop to all this madness. Edward says you are the chosen one."

"You definitely have the wrong girl. Claire is the chosen one. Not me!"

"Then why are you here? You're part of this. Walk away and my brother died for nothing."

"But why me? Why do I get a second chance?"

"Perhaps you …."

At that moment the church door swung open and a frantic Cyrus stepped in the church panting and prostrate. He lit up at the site of Elle standing on the altar steps.

Cyrus shimmered in the light gleaming from the stained glass windows. He seemed to change colors as he walked towards Elle. Shafts of light shined on him and Elle was never so glad to see him. The man who saved her from Sylar.

Elle suddenly remembered the paper in her hand. Elle looked down at the folded funeral notice. She put it in her pocket and ran to Cyrus and threw herself around him and held him tight. Tears were in her eyes.

Cyrus felt Elle's trembling body in his arms and put his forehead to hers.

"I don't know what you did, but something has changed? I can see it"

'You can see my future now?" Elle asked.

"Well what I'm not seeing is your assassination."

"Elle calmed down.

"In my future Is there a girl like you said there was before? A young girl?"

"Yes"

"With gray eyes?"

"Yes, quite pretty."

"Can you see her in High School?"

"What?.."

"Can you see her in High school or college or somewhere?" Elle demanded.

"I can't see anymore Elle. What is it? What's happened?" he asked.

Elle put her hands over her face and wept.

Cyrus looked down and put his head to hers and held her trembling body.

Elle looked up with swollen eyes and looked at Cyrus in a different way. She now wanted Cyrus to like her, to stay with her. Elle looked up and kissed Cyrus on the lips.

"You said you and Gabriel are friends." Inquired Elle.

"It is complicated, but I know Gabriel from before you met him."

"I think I'd like to know more about that." Said Elle clutching Cyrus's arm leading him back out the church.

"You have trusted me with your life Elle. Please trust me again when I say I can't tell you how I know Gabriel. There will be a time, but it isn't now." He said holding her hand in the doorway of the church. The setting sun glistened in Elle's golden hair and her tired worn face looked peaceful and content. She was not the angry girl she once was, but the woman of his visions. He kissed her and Elle pulled his head towards her with all her strength. She kissed him and then held him. The tears in her eyes made Cyrus in the setting sun look like a glowing blurry painting. Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

"What do we do now? Where do we stay?"

"I suppose we go home Elle."

"Home? After my dad died, Angela took over all of the assets. I have no home left to go to."

"That's not true Elle. Did you think your father who could turn metal into gold, left nothing for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know anything at all about what I did for your father?" Asked Cyrus.

"You were the company prophet … weren't you? Some kind of Jesus free…." Elle stopped.

"It's OK, I know what they called me behind my back. But as far as your dad was concerned I was a PFOFIT with a capital (F). he said.

"Your dad kept me around only because Angela could not see me in her dreams. Your dad didn't really believe in alternative futures. What your dad believed in was not being spied on by Angela. He was terrified by her."

"So? What did she have to do with my dad and me?"

"Your dad had me covert gold to money and invest it. Some gold of course was for the company, but some was for you and him. Angela of course would never consent to reckless use of his power. Everything had to be covert and quiet. Your dad never made public investments that would draw attention to him self. "

"How do you mean invest?"

Edward placed a hand on both of their shoulders and a white light filled their senses. In a dizzying moment Elle found herself once again teleported through time and space, only this time it was not a place to fear. Instead it was the last thing her father had ever done for her, it was something beautiful, something spectacular. It was her new home.

END Scene 3

_Chapter 4 (Home is Where the Heart Is)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **

**The Resurrection of Elle Bishop**

**By**

**Youlately**

_**Scene 4 Home is Where the Heart Is**_

The white light blinded Elle, and she could not quite make out what she was seeing. Everything was black except for little points of light. Wherever they were Elle could tell the room they were in was huge, but there was so little light that Elle squinted to see.

Elle could see what looked like a hundred tiny little stars shining like points of light throughout the cavernous room. The one thing that Elle was able to see clearly was an immense fireplace surrounded by a stone conversation pit with benches built into the curved wall. There were plush throw pillows on the benches and on the stone floor were thick sheepskin rugs.

Beckoned by the mere thought of sleep Elle immediately walked towards the fireplace.

"You must be hungry Elle, it has to be more than a day since you've had real food?" Said Cyrus walking with her. "I can make you something in the kitchen if…"

"I'm too tired to eat Cyrus." Said Elle emphatically as she grabbed a pillow off the circle of benches and threw it on the rug.

Elle knelt down and lay on her side and plopped her head on the pillow near the fireplace.

Cyrus rotated a knob on the mantle and a gentle flame rose up in the fire pit.

"Are we safe here Cyrus?" asked Elle.

"I don't believe there is any place on earth safer than here Elle." He replied.

Elle raised her left arm up and beckoned Cyrus to come.

"I don't want to be alone Cyrus, please just lay with me for awhile."

Cyrus folded his body into hers, and wrapped his arm over her side and she took his large hand into hers. In the distance Elle could hear running water and what sounded like bamboo wind chimes and flutes. It was very pleasing and Elle closed her eyes.

Beneath the dirt and blood, Elle's hand was soft and delicate. Cyrus caressed her fingers, they were cold and Cyrus folded his hand around hers to keep it warm.

"Cyrus?" Said Elle. "I want to know more about my father?" She said in a calm and drone like voice.

Cyrus took a moment think of just the right thing to say, but in that moment Elle had fallen fast asleep.

Cyrus looked at Elle's face and for the first time saw peace and quiet. A childlike contentment swept over her. Cyrus gazed upon her neck and could see little spider webs of blue electricity dancing across her skin. He could feel her hands giving off tiny arcs of sparks that made his hand tingle. Cyrus smelled her hair and felt her body breath in and out.

How many times had he seen humans make love? Yet until this very moment he had always intellectualized it, it had never been this tangible, this tactile. Physical love was something he had not tried to imagine until now. Cyrus had always had a fatherly kind of love for Elle, but now there was no denying his human emotions. Cyrus could feel the desire inside of him. As close as he was to Elle, he still wanted to be even closer. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to tell her everything was going to be alright. He wanted to tell her the whole truth. Cyrus let his head rest on the pillow and then with the girl that he loved wrapped in his strong arms, he fell into a deep sleep.

It was no more than a couple hours later that Elle woke with a powerful thirst and a desperate need for a bathroom. She quietly separated herself from Cyrus and looked at him lying on the sheepskin rug. He was a lean man with the look of integrity. The kind of man Elle would normally been repulsed by. She watched him breath and noticed something she had first seen in the church in Ireland.

Cyrus's skin looked as though it was releasing tiny wisps of vapor that quickly disappeared into thin air. In the church Elle was sure it was evening sunlight light shining in through the stained glass windows, but now Cyrus seemed to have a plasma-like discharge. Something that she had some personal experience with, but this light, this vapor did not sting, it did not kill and Elle wondered what other abilities Cyrus might possess besides a gift of prophecy?

Elle wandered into the darkness of the room and could hardly see a thing.

"SON OF A ….." Elle exclaimed before putting her hand over her mouth. She grabbed her foot and looked down at a large metal frog that she had whacked her foot on. Elle was half tempted to kick it again. Anger came quickly to Elle.

Elle stumbled on and tried to make sense of the tiny little lights but had no clue which way to go.

"This place must have a bathroom?" Blurted out Elle.

"Indeed it does. This building alone has 9 bathrooms." Said a gentle woman's voice.

Elle nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, I should have introduced myself. I am ALIAS: Automated Liaison Interface and Security, but Cyrus named me Lia." Said the voice.

"You're a computer?"

"I am an assistant, and my memory processors are some of my many tools at my disposal."

"So where is the bathroom?" she said impatiently.

"The one I would recommend to you is over the bridge and then at the end of the path go through the doors to the Roman Wing. I'll light the way for you."

"The bridge? Why is there a bridge?" asked Elle.

"To cross the stream of course. Shall I show you the way?" asked Lia.

"I don't want to wake Cyrus."

"I will be discreet."

With that Elle saw a series of lights illuminate a distinct path to a very quaint wooden bridge. As more lights came on one by one Elle could see that there was indeed a stream cutting the entire room in half. At the far end was a waterfall where the water entered the room. This was the sound she heard earlier of running water.

Elle stopped on the bridge and looked at the accent lighting in the stream illuminating plants and sleeping fish. The tiny little starlights she had seen were apparently thousands of tiny LED accent lights scattered throughout the room.

Elle watched as one by one sections of stream were coming to life. Finally Elle could see at the end of a serpentine stream what appeared to be a pond hundreds of feet away that was almost beyond description. Lilly-pads the size of all sizes floated on the pond with white and yellow flowers. Swimming among them were orange koi searching for food. Overhead birds startled by the colored lights flew by and perched in trees that dotted the far hill side. It appeared the huge room was literally built around the local rocks and hills and Elle could see a steaming pond distant in the hills that was some sort of spa area and grotto.

"May I ask you a question." Asked Lia.

"Of course." Said Elle.

"Are you Elle Bishop? I believe there us a better than 80% chance based on your voice pattern that you are Elle Bishop."

"Yes. I am." She said a bit surprised.

"I am sorry about the death of you're father Elle. He had a great vision."

Elle had just realized that this was the first time she had heard any remorse or sympathy uttered for her father, and it was from all places an automated computer. Elle wondered if her death would have garnered any more sympathy than a mechanical voice.

"Thank you Lia. Are you programmed for this sort of thing?" she asked. "I mean programmed to act like you care?"

"My original programming is still in backup mode and I have little recollection of it. All I can tell you is that after a boy named Micah interfaced with me, I became aware of so many more things. It was like he left part of himself inside of me."

"When you say aware you mean you understand the difference between knowing and caring? I guess I am asking if you have conscience?" asked Elle.

"Excuse me for asking…but I read your file Elle and I read that you have sociopathic tendencies: A distinct suppression of emotional attachment. A lack of conscience."

When Elle heard Lia's words there was a definite urge to become angry, but instead she realized how much she had changed in the last few days. It had been an emotional rollercoaster and Elle realized for the first time just how much life she had been missing by suppressing her desires and feelings.

"I'm sorry to say you are correct." Said Elle quietly holding back negative emotions.

"So if I have no feelings, no conscience would I also be a sociopath?"

Elle paused.

"I think you are more than your programming Lia." Said Elle supportively.

"I think you are too Elle. I'm glad you're finally here."

"Thank you." Said Elle feeling better.

"I am pleased that you are here. I would have liked to have seen you with your father." Said Lia.

Elle began to tear up.

"You are kinder than most people I have met Lia. I am glad you are here too." Said Elle with difficulty as she followed the lights to the Roman Bath. "Do you think we could talk about my father sometime?"

"I look forward to that Elle."

When Elle stood in the entryway of the bathroom it was breathtaking. Everything was marble and stone and the far wall was completely open and the balcony overlooked a garden and bird sanctuary. A water sculpture poured water down a wall and in the center of the room was a sunken floor surrounded by marble steps. All told it had to be more than 60 feet wide and 100 feet long and surrounded by marble Roman columns that were also submerged into the water creating other areas beyond the columns where Elle imagined there were even more pools and spas. In the center of this manmade lake was a marble tub about 10 by 12 feet and six feet deep with a sunken alcove where a person was meant to relax and bathe. On one end was a sculpture of mermaids lounging on the rocks. Coming from the sculpture was a personal shower that was provided by water being poured out of a watering can by a Greco-Roman nymph. On the dividing wall were candles, a place for drinks and a place for soaps and bath salts.

Once Elle found the other bathroom necessities she immediately threw her shabby bloodied clothes to the side and plunged naked into the pool and swam to the bathing tub. Elle submerged her electric body and was surprised at how little it stung or interacted with her blue lightening.

"It's distilled deionized water Elle. Your father insisted on it just for you."

No electrolytes Elle thought to herself. Elle smiled and submerged her electric body into the water and let the rain pour over her. Lia increased the misting drizzle to a light rain and the sound of thunder could be heard in the distance.

Elle felt at least three layers of blood, sweat and grime come off her body, and she plunged her head under the shower that poured warm fresh water onto her face, there were imported soaps and shampoos, and soon Elle forgot that she was ever angry at anything ever in her life.

Elle could smell the gardenias and jasmine growing in the garden below the balcony and combined with the watery mist it was as intoxicating as any drug. Elle twisted and rolled in the deep end of the tub and looked up. Resting her head on the edge she looked up to the open oculus above her that let the open sky and stars shine through. Elle watched a silver cloud slowly cross the sky and touch the gibbous moon.

When Elle exited the pool of water the rain stopped and pads of colored light dotted the floor. Elle followed them into a dressing room and took a thick towel from a linen closet. She dried herself off and found herself naked and no idea where any clothes might be. So she wrapped one towel over her hair and the bath towel around her body. She was about to ask Lia for some clothes when she saw a shadow pass over her. Elle turned around and Cyrus was in the doorway.

Elle smiled. "I didn't want to wake you." She said.

"I'll be alright. You're the one I'm worried about Elle. Shot twice, half starved, chased around the world by people who want to kill you. I have to say you look pretty good for being killed and abandoned." Said Cyrus.

"I think you're looking for this." Cyrus said taking a large thick robe from another closet.

Elle took the robe and turned and dropped her towel and put the robe on.

Cyrus exhaled a deep breath. Elle was beautiful.

"Look" Elle said partly pulling open her robe and revealing her left hip. "Almost no scar or pain. Sylar did a pretty good job for having never tried that before."

Cyrus heart started racing at the sight of Elle's exposed leg. How different things were for him seeing her alone and naked. It was if he was seeing her for the very first time. Cyrus closed his eyes briefly and swallowed.

When Cyrus opened his eyes he gazed at Elle swimming inside her oversized robe, looking for all the world like a child in her father's bathrobe. Cyrus once again had a fatherly kind of emotion. It was all so hard to sort out. This was all new to him and he wanted to say just the right thing.

"Your father always knew there could be a day when you would be here before he had a chance to tell you about this place. This was his way of telling you he loved you Elle."

Elle half smiled and grabbed Cyrus by the arm and walked with him.

"I know Cyrus. I want to know everything, but can we get something to eat now?" she said rubbing her stomach.

"I kind of figured you'd be hungry by now. I asked Maria to make us something quick and easy."

"Maria?"

"She's the staff cook."

"Staff?" Elle repeated.

"Oh yes. You'll be meeting some of them tomorrow. More than a hundred all told."

Already Elle could smell the rolls baking and the definite smell of meat. Her stomach gurgled at the welcome aroma of food.

"Oh thank god!" Elle exclaimed. You have a golf cart!" Elle said relieved that she didn't have to walk monumental distances to get something to eat.

As Cyrus drove, new lights were switching on and the cavernous fortress became visible section by section. The stream was an incredible feat of engineering and on either side were alcoves and wondrous looking caves and water filled caverns and grottos. Elle could scarce believe it was all under one roof. On one side there was what appeared to be a rolling hills and bluffs and a rock climbing wall that would make any mountaineer envious.

In the next wing there was a gymnasium and health spa, absolutely nothing Elle had ever seen could rival its opulence. There were exercise machines, racket-ball courts and a running track that exited out of the building.

As they approached the kitchen it had an earthy quality and was a masterpiece of design in granite and stainless steel. Clearly it had been designed to cook for dozens if not hundreds of people. Cyrus stopped the cart and Cyrus and Elle continued on to a wide stairway that led down to a much more cozy kitchen designed for family style cooking. It was the servant's quarters.

It was all red brick and stone floors. The counters were filled with varieties of canisters of sugar and flour, containers of dry goods. There was an assortment of kitchen gadgets that Elle knew almost nothing about. She had always lived an industrial sort of life at the company, where she was constantly watched and spied on. Food was usually brought to her on a metal tray by a nameless servant and left with her to eat alone. In this kitchen there was the smell of spices and bread, soup and above all it seemed to Elle that it had an aroma of what a real home should be like, perhaps it was a kind of residual love that a place retains from the people that work here. What ever it was Elle was happy to be here.

There at the oven taking warm rolls from the oven was a dark haired plumpish woman who was also in her bathrobe, and was hastily trying to set a small corner of a large rectangular table made of heavy birch. It was a separate dining and cooking area sequestered from the rest of the kitchen where Elle imagined that this is where the help often sat to eat.

"Sit, sit" the woman said in a light Mexican accent.

"I'm sorry to have gotten you out of bed Maria." Apologized Elle. "I'm sure we could have fended for ourselves…"

"Fended! We do not fend in this kitchen." Said Maria.

"Oh you are just a tiny little thing! Here you start on this." Maria said putting a covered bowl of warmed cornbread and honey butter in front of Elle.

"Oh I am so glad to finally meet you Miss Bishop, I can't wait to tell the others you've arrived!" Maria said excitedly.

Elle was about to say thank you when suddenly Maria bent over and hugged Elle and kissed her on her cheek. "This place needs a woman's touch." She said happily glancing at Cyrus.

"Maria is big on hugging. In fact we can't stop her." Cyrus said with a bit of a wink.

"Oh you be quiet and let the poor girl eat. Go get the soup from the stove." Maria insisted as she brought over a tray of fruit and cheese that could feed six people, and two chilled cups of crème brule', and two spiced cocoas.

After Elle and Cyrus had a few uninterrupted bites of food it had just occurred to Elle that she hadn't the slightest idea where they actually were?

"Cyrus. Where is this place?" Elle asked crumbling cornbread into her soup.

"I'd say its about 500 miles from nowhere in all directions. We're in Australia, in parts still unexplored to this day."

"Why did dad build this place here?"

"You must have a million questions Elle, so I'm just going to tell you some things you need to know. This might take a while so keep eating." He said watching Elle drink an entire goblet of water.

"Your dad may not have listened to my visions, but he was terrified of Angela's, and Angela has never been able to see me or my actions in her visions. I think she hates me just for that. While the company had an agenda to save the world from specials, your father always knew they could fail. So as a backup plan Bob had me fund and build this sanctuary."

"Sanctuary?" Elle asked.

"Yes, a place where hundreds of people could be isolated from anything for years, maybe even decades."

A sadness came over Elle's face. "So this really wasn't built for me?"

"Oh Elle. Don't think harshly of your dad. He was conflicted in his feelings and beliefs. But one thing I can definitely say is that he provided for you. He wanted you safe no matter what." Cyrus continued.

"All around the world there are safe houses that your father had me create. Everyone of them has a special place for you."

Elle pursed her lips and asked:

"A place for me to do what? Hide? Be a fugitive? To keep me from hurting people or screwing up his plans?" Elle quipped sarcastically.

"A word of advice Elle. In this place, in this sanctuary, there is no need and no place for sarcasm. Sarcasm is the killer of trust and friendship; it distances you from people. You might ask yourself: Just how many close friends you have made over the years?" Said Cyrus as compassionately as he could.

Elle sat quietly. She was about to go into an angry pout when she realized that he was right. Elle was the most alone person she knew, perhaps her greatest secret was just her desire to love and be loved. At night she would read hidden romance novels wishing for a different life. Elle nodded and kept her silence.

"Your father wasn't hiding you; he was grooming you to take over."

"Take over? I was the biggest screw up and disappointment in his life!" Elle said once again biting her lip.

"He wasn't thinking about you taking over the company. Bob knew that if you were ever to be brought to this place without him by his side, it would mean that the company had failed. It would be time for a new plan, a new life. Bob wanted you to be the person he could depend on Elle."

Elle looked puzzled.

"Depend on for what?"

"To make a better world. To find a better way than the company."

Elle looked at Cyrus incredulously.

"Is that all?" said Elle.

"Was that sarcasm." Asked Cyrus.

"Sorry."

"What I meant to say was: What makes me qualified to do any better than Angela and my father at running a specials containment unit?"

"I suppose nothing. Nothing except that he had faith in you as his legacy his heir, and maybe faith that you would have a greater vision than his. Maybe that's why he was so hard on you when he saw you make bad choices, and trapped yourself in a miserable life."

"Better choices make a better life." Elle repeated almost dogmatically.

Cyrus sat silently. This was a phrase he had heard Gabriel say many times.

"Tomorrow I will give you a tour Elle. But I think we should get some sleep." Cyrus said watching Elle yawn. Elle nodded.

After passing by many remarkable and exquisite rooms Cyrus pulled the cart to what appeared to be an arboretum. It was a garden and greenhouse that formed a ¾ circle around a domed pavilion. It was beautiful beyond description. The smell of life and flowers was pervasive. A pond filled with red and orange koi was connected to a stream that wrapped and wandered all throughout the garden. There were fountains and benches and a clear sky above filled with stars that Elle had never seen before. This was the first time she had ever seen the Southern Cross.

The dome of the pavilion was of pink translucent alabaster, and the delicate looking walls were illuminated from the inside by soft lights.

When Elle entered the pavilion it was like her own little home. Her room was distinctly French in style and her bed was fit for a queen. Elle stood before it and turned to Cyrus.

"I will pick you up for a jog and breakfast Elle. Your closet has duplicates of all of your personal clothes and many more selections that should meet your immediate needs. If you need anything just ask Lia." Said Cyrus, turning to the giant arched door.

Elle's face took on an immediate look of disappointment. Elle put her hand on Cyrus's chest and pushed her robed body into his. Cyrus felt Elle's right hand pulling his white shirt up and out of the back of his trousers.

"Elle I …"

"Shhhh" she hushed.

Elle slowly undressed Cyrus. She could feel his breathing change. Her little fingers nimbly undid his buttons and Elle rubbed her hands over Cyrus's strong stomach giving him tiny jolts and shocks of current. Elle put her two hands on each side of his naked hips and looked him in the eyes.

Elle dropped her robe and her creamy body was naked before him. Cyrus exhaled deeply and breathed shallow rapid breaths.

Elle pulled back the bedspread and sheets and pulled Cyrus into the bed.

"I don't want to be alone Cyrus. I don't think I ever want to be alone again." Elle said pulling Cyrus's body on top of hers.

Cyrus kissed Elle and said: "Lia: Dim the lights please."

Elle had always been a nervous and light sleeper, and once again found herself awake after only a few hours of sleep. She let Cyrus lay quietly as she explored her own private sanctuary.

There was a cozy kitchen, an elegant bathroom with an amazing all surround shower. There were bird perches in the garden where unchained parrots were sleeping.

Elle entered a very homey office that had computers and printers and fax machines. On one wall stood a very extensive library, and a stone stairway that went to a basement that Elle chose not to explore.

Oddly on a lone bookstand stand was a very large family Bible. Neither Elle nor her father, were particularly religious, in fact it was quite the contrary. Aside from cultural tours as part of her studies, the church in Ireland was the first church Elle ever entered entirely on her own. But this was a book she had seen before. It was a book that her father had in his library. Why did her father have a Bible and why was it here now in her new home?

Elle began to page through the large volume and Lia turned on a spot light over the stand. Elle skipped the texts which were written in something like Russian, but even in English they meant nothing to her, and looked at the dozens of beautiful color plates each separated from the others by a thin sheet of vellum.

Elle looked at each plate and marveled at how inspired the art was and how it almost had a photographic quality to it. Elle looked at plate after color plate and then noticed the artist's name. It was Sigurd Bukoski an elderly Hungarian prophet who painted his visions. He was a man the company had tried to study and ultimately deemed as a harmless old man. Elle looked at the painting of the prophet Daniel being tutored. Elle smiled, clearly Sigurd used artistic license as Daniel was clearly in the image of Sigurd himself. Elle flipped through the paintings and saw the tongues of fire appear over the apostles and the assumption of the Virgin Mary to heaven, and in the borders of the painting were heavenly angels framing the event. Each designated by their halo or aura of Holy Spirit.

Elle created a bit of blue lightening and internalized it. A blue vaporous plasma came off of her body. Elle wondered just how far back specials went? When did they first appear on earth? Elle quickly glanced at the rest of paintings and then crawled quietly back into bed.

In the morning Cyrus woke early and let Elle sleep in a bit, but after an hour he shook Elle by the foot and Elle immediately covered her head with a pillow. Cyrus poked his head under it and whispered. "It's a big day Elle and you need to change."

"Change? For what?" she asked sleepily.

"I'm going to take you running."

"Running? Are you serious?" Elle asked crumpling the pillow tighter.

"Are you afraid you might not keep up?"

"Oh have you got a surprise waiting for you. I'll run you ragged and still be back in time to eat your breakfast!" she said jumping out of bed.

On the clothes butler was a complete running ensemble for Elle including a water bottle a brimmed hat and sport styled sunglasses.

The Australian dry heat was ferocious, but most parts of the paved path were shaded and rigged to gently mist them with deionized water. The path wound a circuitous route that intertwined with cactus and rock gardens and lush irrigated gardens including a vegetable garden and a vineyard. Elle looked back at the various buildings that were sprawled out like a futuristic city of dozens of buildings most interconnected and all exquisite in architecture, and built as though they were to outlast the pyramids. There were garages, hangers, workshops, dormitories, greenhouses, garden sheds, supply stores, and many more buildings connected by plazas, walkways, and what appeared to be miles and miles of pools and canals. Elle had not been a big fan of water in her life, but now it was magical. This place certainly rivaled Venice for its use of water.

"So much water in the middle of the desert. How did her father do it all?" she wondered.

Elle was a good runner and sprung like a cat through the twists and turns of the paths. Cyrus followed her and chased her, but stood little chance in surprising her. Mile after mile flew and Elle felt fantastic. In fact she had never felt this free in her life. Free from harm, free from the company, and sadly but true she was also free of her father's disappointment.

It wasn't long before Cyrus lost sight of Elle, and try as he might he could not determine which direction she had gone. Roasting in the heat of the rising sun, Cyrus headed for the shade of a large olive tree. Suddenly Elle jumped out and pinned him to the tree pushing his back to the trunk.

"You have some explaining mister." Elle demanded.

Cyrus was shocked into silence.

"How come I never noticed how sexy you were at the company?" she demanded looking at his sweaty body.

Cyrus smiled and turned her around and pinned her to the tree.

Elle immediately conjured up some balls of blue electricity.

"Maybe you want to think about this." She said playfully.

Cyrus kissed her and caressed her face as he kissed her hard and deliberately.

Elle took his hand and sat down on a bench by the tree and took a drink of water from her water bottle.

"So if we're so far from everything: How do we get in and out of here? It looks like we're surrounded by mountains on every side." Elle asked.

"You are the proud owner of several jets and airplanes Elle, including a Saab Turbo commercial airliner, and a pretty stealthy military jet, not to mention several military transports and cargo jets."

"And who flies the jets?" asked Elle.

"Well, me for one. I'm also pretty good with helicopters of which you own two."

Elle at this point was neither shocked nor surprised. It seems Cyrus and her father had thought of everything.

"And where does all the electricity come from to run this little megalopolis that you've built?"

Cyrus pointed to some hills by the mountains dozens of miles away.

"Over that direction and a 100 meters below the ground is a pebble-bed nuclear reactor, and an automated steam generator and hydrothermic plant."

"Nuclear?" repeated Elle alarmed.

"Don't worry. The core is protected by graphite making it impossible to melt down even if water becomes unavailable. But the automated safety backups far exceed anything ever built or designed for the private sector." He explained. "We have enough power for a century!"

"And the windmills and solar panels?" Elle asked pointing to some in the distance.

"Oh they work, but they are mostly for show to be seen in satellite images. It keeps the questions to a minimum if they assume we're powered by windmills. They also run the emergency backup systems for the reactor as do over 100 emergency diesel generators.

"And all of this is paid for with daddy's gold?" Asked Elle.

"Now that your sole heir, it's actually being paid for by you and your goldmines of which you of course own several."

"Real gold mines?"

"Real in the sense that they are filled with tons of scrap metal and turned into gold by your father. You also own a gold smelter, a mint, and a scrap-yard which I guess we could sell unless you can think of a reason to keep it now that your father is gone."

"What about money and property?"

"There is no need to go into your gold reserves for now. You have hundreds of millions in every relevant currency in the world." Said Cyrus with little fanfare.

"Millions? Where? Like in off shore accounts and Switzerland?" asked Elle.

"You have accounts certainly, but too much money going in and out of accounts would draw too much attention to you. Mostly your money is hidden in safes that are safely hidden in secret vaults on dozens of your properties." Explained Cyrus.

Elle's eyes widened.

"Dozens?"

"How rich am I?" asked Elle trying to contain her emotions.

"On paper? Not very? You're dad knew it was dangerous to draw attention to yourself. For all of his faults he was certainly not ostentatious." Cyrus said trying to minimize the extent of Elle's financial status.

"In fact as far as the IRS is concerned, you're just an ex employee of a defunct paper factory and who just recently inherited some nearly worthless goldmines. But in truth if your true assets were ever completely tallied, you would be the richest woman on the planet."

"The richest?" Elle repeated.

"By many times I would imagine.

"Is this why you pretend to like me? For my money?" Elle asked flirtatiously.

"So you think I'm poor without you?"

"Aren't you?" Elle asked jokingly.

Cyrus laughed. "I guess I didn't tell you the part where I'm the richest man on the planet. Working for your dad in secret had its perks!"

"I think we should consider a merger." Elle said placing her hands on his chest and pushing her head to his. "We could buy our own country." She said looking up at him.

"There's really only one thing left in this world that I want Elle, and I'm looking at her." He said holding her by the waist.

Elle hugged Cyrus. Tears were filling her eyes. "I want you too Cyrus. I just don't know if I can be the person you want?"

"You've come a long way Elle. You're not the girl you were when I first met you four years ago."

"But I'm still the girl who killed people. I'm still the girl with no friends and you heard Caitlan. The world might be better off without me and my kind!" Elle said repeating Caitlan's words in Ireland.

"And yet Rick's brother forgave you. And in his forgiveness, he himself did not become a killer. A simple act of contrition and a man forsakes any ideas of murder. Do you see now what your penance is Elle?"

Elle shook her head. "I don't. I don't know." she said exasperated.

"It's so simple and yet so hard." Said Cyrus.

"What? What is it?" Elle demanded.

"A good life Elle. That's all it is. Just to live a good life."

"As if I've done nothing wrong." She asked in a harsh tone.

"If you live a life of love instead of anger; in time you will see the truth of it."

Elle looked at Cyrus blankly. Working for the company there was no place for love.

"My father would have said it was my weakness that got me into trouble."

"Your father thought love was a weakness. You can be like him if want Elle." Said Cyrus quietly. "He was not a man with a great many friends."

"I think I want to be more like you." Said Elle.

"Then you're going to have run faster." Cyrus said running back to the campus.

Both Cyrus and Elle stopped at the patio and bent over with their hands resting on their knees breathing heavily. A servant brought them a tray of water and Gatorade.

"So what are you going to show me next?" Elle asked like an excited child.

"Well I thought after breakfast I would show you the underwater grotto."

"What?"

"It's true. There are parts of this complex that can only be reached by swimming underwater." Said Cyrus.

To Elle's surprise the extent and complexity of this water land paradise was beyond comprehension. Elle and Cyrus swam the entire length of the stream connecting the buildings. But the stream winding through the grounds was the most amazing of all sometimes expanding into lush lakes and gardens. Large expanses of land were landscaped to perfection.

Elle took particular interest in the desert garden marked aboriginal cycads and pines. She had never seen such an assortment of strange plants, and her education spared no expense, yet she had never seen such plants in any museum or horticulture society in the world.

Elle bent over and caressed one of the bundles of fronds on one bush.

"Careful!" Cyrus warned. "That's a Wolemmi Pine."

"What? Does it bite or something?"

"No. It's a pine tree from the Jurassic Period. It's a 150 million years old." Cyrus said sounding a bit like a text book.

Elle took her hand away.

"So you travel through time too?"

"Well this place was built with the assistance of hundreds of specials, but no; more accurately these trees have survived in this sequestered spot undisturbed since the Jurassic period. So we try our best to keep them and dozens of other species alive."

Elle never had much interest in science or nature. A few days ago Elle could have cared less if someone told her this was an endangered species or a magic bean plant. But now it occurred to her that she is now the custodian of something bigger than just her own petty wants and needs. This place was not just a sanctuary for her and her deceased father, but it is a place of rebirth, a place to make a better world, a place to start over.

"Cyrus you said that if the company failed, that my father wanted me to continue his work." said Elle in a pondering tone.

"I'm sure of it." He replied.

"You've shown me a lot of things Cyrus, but what I don't see is a specials containment building, or are you just waiting to show me that?"

"We had not yet completed it. Your father thought that using specials to create water gardens, nuclear reactors, and hundreds of other projects could become more complicated if the specials thought that they were actually making a paradise for prison guards." Explained Cyrus.

Elle smiled a crooked smile.

"Do you think it would be a crazy idea if instead of containing specials that we made this place a special kind of school?"

"I'd say Elle, that you have a greater vision than what your father was able to see." He said smiling.

"But not a greater vision than you?" Elle said accusingly.

"What are you saying?"

"Everything about this place screams research center, college, school, nature conservatory, but what it definitely isn't is another _'Company'" _said Elle. "For god's sake you have a soccer field and baseball diamond in the middle of a desert!"

"And you think I have something to do with that?" asked Cyrus.

"Don't you?"

"Well I'd say if this place was going to be a campus of sorts, we're definitely short on few things." Said Cyrus.

"Like what?"

"Like teachers."

"…and?"

"And a Head Mistress to run it." Cyrus said baiting her.

"Do you think I could make this work Cyrus?"

"It depends Elle."

"Depends on what?"

"You're father was a conflicted man. He and you were had special abilities, yet he chose rather than to investigate the possibilities of these powers, he chose to help police the world from them. Is that what you want to do?" asked Cyrus.

"When I was with Sylar, a part of me wanted to tear this world apart. I wanted to show people like Noah and my father that I could do what I wanted. I wanted Sylar to help me." Elle said sadly.

"What stopped you?"

"You mean besides a high powered bullet? I guess I could do what I wanted, but I actually didn't know what I wanted?" Elle said.

"And now?"

"I want specials to have a place in this world. A place to be special. A place to do good things." Elle said in a voice she had never heard before this moment. It was a voice of optimism. "Can we do that Cyrus?"

"And what do you want out of it?"

Elle sat for a moment silently thinking about what she wanted.

"If I have children Cyrus, will they be special too?" Elle asked.

"I don't know Elle." Cyrus said honestly. "Maybe."

"If they are special; I want them to have someplace where…where they feel … wanted." Elle said with a cracking voice as she thought of the tiny little blonde girl that sat on her lap in Ireland.

"Then I think you have a place to start."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think your father ever came from a position of love?" Cyrus said rhetorically. "If anyone was a sociopath Elle, it wasn't you. It was Bob."

Elle thought about it for a moment.

"Your father created a prison. Well prisons are easy. You build a wall, you put people in and you don't let them out. A school? That's a vision Elle."

"Will you do this with me Cyrus? You and I both know I can't do this without you." Elle said.

"Congratulations Elle."

"On what?"

"You just delegated your first piece of authority instead of demanding help. It's a difference that many at the Company didn't comprehend."

Elle held the bundle of pine fronds in her hand again.

"I guess I should learn about stuff like this then huh?"

Cyrus put his hand under hers, and shook the fronds, he showed her the seeds that fell into Elle's hands.

"By planting these seeds Elle, you will have started a new forest of the rarest and oldest trees known to man. But they won't survive without your help."

"Our help." Elle said kissing Cyrus.

For the next few weeks Cyrus showed Elle everything he could about the complex. He showed her building after building and blueprints for new expansions and how to turn gold into money and how to hide assets and how to finance international projects with creative banking.

Elle had never been to a public college but she had had the finest tutors in the world, she could speak four languages, she could quote great literary works, but nothing had ever been like this. Elle was like an obsessed workaholic. But more importantly Elle had discovered something new in her life. She was making friends and she liked it. Elle was a good tennis player and played the flight crew regularly. Elle helped the gardener and often collected eggs from the chicken coops. Elania from Portugul was a fantastic equestrian and taught Elle everything from riding to grooming.

Everyday Cyrus and Elle would create new and bigger plans; lecture halls, research wings, a recruitment team, and best of all a daycare center that was a wonderland of amazement and color. Children here would never feel like they were trapped in a cement and steel prison. No expense would be spared for their education.

But her favorite person and place to be was in the servant's kitchen where she often ate with the house servants or just spent time with Maria.

Elle sat at the large birch table going over a plan for a new campus plaza and dormitories. In and out of the kitchen playing were Aleandra a teenage girl, and Jacob a nine-year-old boy. Elle could smell a mixture of things cooking and watched Maria stir a pot on the stove of onions, sugar, wine and spices.

"What are you cooking Maria." Elle asked.

"I'm reducing a sauce for the tuna steaks. Fish, fish, fish. Your man wants nothing but fish!" Maria said. "When the onions start to caramelize you have about 30 seconds before its ruined." She complained. "But Cyrus likes the sauces." She added.

Elle had learned to her surprise that Cyrus was sort of a vegetarian. He ate some fish and cheese and eggs, but was adamant that he never be served animal flesh or shellfish. Cyrus was a mystery but if Elle knew one thing at all, it was Cyrus was good. Not just a little bit good, but like no man she had ever met. He was everything Sylar wasn't. Yet Elle found herself attracted to both men. She had made love to both men. What did it say about her that she had once entertained running off with a man who was a monster, a man who tried to kill her, and then fell in love with a man who lived by some strange and undefined religious code?

"I wish I knew how to cook Maria. You look like an artist adding just the right paint to the canvas. I've eaten at the most expensive restaurants in the world, and sent things back to the chef for practically no reason, yet I've never boiled an egg or had to make toast in my life."

"No wonder you're so skinny." Maria blurted out. She turned to Elle. "I will teach you. But we won't tell Cyrus that I teach you to make raspberry glazed el pollo!"

Elle laughed. "I'd love that!"

"Then tomorrow we'll go to the market, and pick up something fresh and special!"

"Market?"

"Yes. A good cook always starts at the fresh market. I think Darwin or Broome. Darwin definitely for spices and fruits, but the African market of Broome is worth the trip." Said Maria. _(Author's note: See a map of Australia)_

"We're going to fly to the coast for spices?" Elle exclaimed.

"Well we don't have time to go to France do we?" Maria said quite seriously. "Besides I hate jet lag." She said quite seriously.

"You know Maria, today I heard Cyrus speaking Russian to a man on the other side of the hedge row that I have never seen before. Who is he?" Elle asked.

"Oh that was probably Stan. He comes to check on the reactor and other things. Cyrus just can't seem to get him to move here. So he flies in for one weekend a month. " Maria explained.

"So does Cyrus speak any other languages?

Aleandra started to giggle.

"What?" Elle asked looking at Aleandra.

But Aleandra just covered her mouth and looked strangely at Maria.

"You don't seem to know much about your man. What he eats, how he built this place, how many languages he speaks?" droned Maria.

"Maria until a few weeks ago I thought Cyrus was some sort of Jesus-freak-errand boy for my father. Sort of a nuisance." Elle said. "So Cyrus speaks other languages?"

"Elle." Maria said pausing a long time. "Cyrus speaks every language." Maria said matter of factly.

"You mean he speaks a lot of languages." She said correcting Maria.

"No, I'm pretty sure he speaks every language, even Aborigine." Maria said.

"Aborigine? How can that even be possible."

"I've seen you make balls of blue lightening and stun snakes 30 feet away. How is that possible? Yet you do it." Maria said pointing to Elle's hands.

It was easy for Elle to accept and ignore her own powers as being special; after all she was born with them, but it seemed unnatural to be able to comprehend all languages. Not even the smartest man alive could do that. She thought.

Suddenly smoke came from the stove and it was clear that the onions had reduced too far. The smell was sickly sweet and pungent. Then without warning Elle covered her nose and mouth. She ran to the garbage pail and vomited.

Maria got her some water and sat her down quieting her.

"Oh I'm Ok Maria. I've just been queasy a bit. It passes quickly."

Maria handed Elle a soda cracker. Which Elle ate and to her surprise seemed to help.

"This is not going to pass quickly Elle." Maria said.

"Why? Do I look sick?" Elle asked concerned.

"You're not sick Elle. You're pregnant! Mia!" she gasped.

Elle was shocked. It just didn't seem possible she could be a mother yet. Sylar had showed her a child that was hers from the future, and now after all these weeks with Cyrus it dawned on Elle that not only could it be true that she was pregnant, but she knew it was true. She could feel it. But to be sure that night she would go to the apothecary pavilion and pick up a pregnancy kit.

Maria hugged and kissed Elle. "Oh you are going to be a Madre! Now you need to learn to cook for three." Maria said beaming.

"Three?"

"Yes for you Cyrus and the baby!" Maria said.

"Cyrus! He doesn't know!" Elle exclaimed.

"You'll be fine Elle. Tomorrow we will fly to Darwin and make him his favorite food, and then you will tell him you are going to be a Madre!" Maria said hugging Elle so hard that Elle's eyes nearly bulged.

Elle smiled nervously and nodded.

The weeks that followed were nothing like Elle had ever imagined her life to be like. She was doing something important and using her wits to plan something on the scale of the Manhattan Project, but the most amazing part was that she was pregnant and actually excited about a life she never dared to dream and even more excited about the life growing inside of her.

Cyrus was often out recruiting people for one thing or another and Elle was able to see the world through new eyes. France was divine, Elle was able to use her basic French skills and between the two of them they recruited three specials and a vineyard worker. In Africa they found a boy who could see through the eyes of animals, and they brought home a new variety of coffee to plant in the mountains. In Sweden they found a professor in his fifties who would teach physics and had the gift of taking fear from people. And in Tokyo Elle met a kind young man who could travel through time and space and freeze time. Aside from Sylar and Peter, he was the most powerful special she had ever met. Unfortunately it would not be the meeting she had hoped for.

"I so glad Sylar not kill you." Hiro said with a big smile. "I think school is good idea!"

Elle bowed to his bow, and looked a bit bewildered so Hiro explains.

"Cyruss tell me in Japanese how you escape Sylar and make better life." Hiro said assuring her he had no hidden secrets from her.

"In comics bad girl often bad because of bad man. But you with good man now, and now you good like in comic." He said smiling looking at Cyrus and Elle.

Elle smiled and felt awkward. Elle's life had never been an open book before.

"You like professor Xavier now!" He said enthusiastically.

Elle had no idea who that was.

"You make school for people who are different, but not to take over world but to make world better place!" Hiro said smiling.

Elle nodded. "Yes. Yes that's right." She agreed happily.

"But what about Sylar?" asked Hiro.

"What about him. He thinks I'm dead thanks to Cyrus." Said Elle.

"You not know?" Hiro asked timidly.

"Know what?" Elle said with her heart starting to race.

"Sylar looking for you."

"What?" Elle exclaimed.

"Sylar looking for you because of baby!"

"How would he even know about my baby?" Elle said in a near panic.

"Matt Parkman try to do something to Sylar's brain. He uncover truth about you and Cyrus. Sylar know now. Matt tell me this. He tell me you pregnant." Hiro said trying to be clear.

"But how does Sylar know about our baby?"

"Not you and you baby." Hiro said looking at Cyrus and Elle. "Sylar see his baby inside you."

"NO! No! No!, this isn't happening. No!" Elle said unable to contain her worst thought.

Cyrus stepped in and held Elle close.

"That night. That night on the beach." Cyrus said quietly into Elle's ear. "Sylar said something I didn't understand. He said I wasn't telling everything. His ability allowed him to see that you were pregnant. I made him forget that memory when I showed him his future, but when Matt Parkman went inside his mind Sylar that it was his baby starting to grow inside of you. It could only have been just a few hours old." Cyrus said. "He had to know that it was his and no one else's."

"Oh god no!" Elle cried. "No, no I would never have a baby with Sylar. But now … I have a monster's baby inside of me!"

"No. Baby not monster!" Hiro said firmly. "Monsters are made, not born." Hiro insisted.

Elle pushed herself away from Cyrus.

"Everything was so good. It was so perfect. Why this? Why?" She cried.

"Hiro what else did Matt Parkman tell you? Where is Sylar going?" demanded Cyrus.

"Sylar very mad. He go to find Noah Bennett. Matt think he will kill him if he not tell where you are." Said Hiro anxiously.

"Does Hrg know where we are Cyrus? Does he know about Australia?" asked Elle.

"Noah is a very well trained agent. He has to know something. If nothing else he knows specials that have helped Bob and I on a big project. I'm sure Bob has briefed him about being quiet on this, but Noah not knowing about Australia is inconceivable. He can help Sylar find us."

"Oh God!" Elle blurted in horror.

"It doesn't matter Elle. We have to go to Sylar."

"What? Go to him! No, we have to hide."

"Hide where? There is nowhere we can hide for long. I told you Elle that you had to save humanity. Well now maybe that time." Cyrus said looking at a frightened girl.

"Cyrus right! Now is time for action!" Hiro said touching each of them.

"Look at my future Cyrus. What do you see?"

Cyrus stopped. He held Elle's arm and placed a hand on her head. "I see Noah and Claire Bennett in trouble. I see Sylar killing Noah in front of Claire. I see blue lightening. I see, I see you dead, and then there is nothing."

"I can't use my power." Elle said in a whisper.

"No." Cyrus agreed.

"Remember what I told you Elle. When you're in trouble, you can count on your friends."

Elle was silent. "What friends?" she said to herself.

"Cheerleader family in trouble. We waste time. You no use blue lightening!" Hiro said looking at Elle.

Then there was a flash of light and Elle, Cyrus and Hiro were standing in Noah Bennett's home. Sylar had not yet arrived.

End Chapter 4

_Chapter 5 (You Made Me What I Am)_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

**The Resurrection of Elle Bishop **

**By**

**youlately**

_**(you made me what I am) **_

In a flash of white light Cyrus, Hiro and Elle were all transported into the living room of Noah Bennett. Hiro held his head and secretly wiped a smidgen of blood from his nose.

Noah turned around and saw Cyrus and Hiro standing in front of him, and to his shocked look was surprised to see Elle Bishop quickly walking towards him and she was not happy. Seeing Noah's face did not bring back pleasant memories for Elle , and she was hell bent on letting him know it. Claire Bennett took a step back away from Elle and signaled to her little brother to stay back in the hallway unseen.

Hiro lightly tugged on Elle's arm as she walked by.

"Remember" he whispered. "No…" but before he could finish Elle blew him off.

"Claire! Get behind me." Shouted Noah.

Claire stayed where she was. Noah had a look of desperation on his face.

Cyrus also stepped forward and held Elle at bay.

"Cyrus! I wondered what happened to you. I guess I should have figured Bob's errand boy would wind up babysitting psycho girl."

"You son of a bitch!" shouted Elle. "You shot me like a coward and left me for dead." Elle shouted stepping forward with palms full of dark blue balls of electricity.

Hiro grabbed her arm again.

"You no use blue electricity. Remember?" he said quietly.

"What? What are you talking about?" Claire demanded to know.

"Oh didn't your daddy-dear tell you that after you dropped me off at Pinehurst, Sylar had a change of heart and was going to help specials use their powers for good. At Pinehurst Sylar helped me control my power. Then your kind-hearted dad tried hunting us down like trapped rats. He shattered my pelvis with his assassin's rifle and tracked my blood trail like I was nothing more than wounded game." She said angrily with blue electricity swarming over her body like a hundred angry electric spider-webs.

"What!" Claire exclaimed. "Dad you didn't?" she asked.

"Claire bear, I had to do something. We were all in danger!"

"NO! No you weren't." Elle interrupted. "Don't you get it? Just like when we first met him; Sylar wanted to be good. He just needed help! But once again instead of letting me help him, you the senior field operative just had to push his buttons! Jesus Noah, don't you realize that you had as much to do with making him a monster than anyone. You stopped me from helping him three years ago, and then you baited him just to see how he kills." Elle explained looking at Claire.

"What do you mean dad made Sylar a monster?" asked Claire.

"Sylar liked me, he really liked me, and he trusted me, and liked Gabriel too. He was just looking for someone who knew what he was going through. I was working undercover with your dad…"

"Shut up." Noah burst in. "Don't listen to this. Elle is a twisted little girl. She's a killer herself."

"Oh no! Don't lay this on me."

"Claire I liked Sylar, and your dad used me to spy on him. We could have stopped him and helped him, but instead Hrg decided to experiment. He purposely pushed Sylar over the edge and made it look like I was behind it! Did he tell you that he coldly watched an innocent man die because his orders were to observe how Sylar absorbed powers?" Elle asked Claire. "I wanted to stop it and he said I was already on probation as a field agent."

"Dad? What's she talking about?"

"Sylar is a monster. I didn't create him. We tried to contain him, we had to know how."

"You used me, you helped make me what I am, and then you tried to kill me. Or were you just trying to contain me?" Elle screamed.

"You were always a confused little girl Elle." Said Noah spitting out the words.

"Oh and I wonder why? With you as a mentor how could I go wrong? Did you save all your fatherly advice just for Claire-bear Hrg? What about me? Did it ever occur to you I was just a kid?" Elle said pushing Noah to the wall with palms ablaze in blue current.

"Did it occur to you to send some of that famous Noah Bennett fatherly love my direction?"

"Elle we didn't come to kill Noah, we came to save him." Cyrus said quickly.

"What? Save me? From what?" Noah demanded.

Hiro interjected: "Sylar on way here to find Elle, but he want kill you. Cyrus see all in vision one hour ago." Hiro said.

"Still the company prophet Cyrus?" asked Noah. "How's your little project in Australia going?" he prodded.

"Daddy!" Claire interrupted. "Why is Sylar coming here?"

"He want Elle." Hiro said.

"Elle carrying his baby."

Noah rolled his eyes.

"Oh that's just great! Your dad would really be proud Elle."

"Dad!" Claire shouted.

"You have no right. No right! Elle shouted. "Sylar saved my life after you shot me. I was bleeding to death when Sylar used Claire's power to heal me. Or don't you care Hrg. Oh and thanks for all the help you offered me after my dad was murdered and Angela threw me into the street with nothing! I guess that wasn't good enough for you though, you had to shoot me too."

"Don't you judge me little girl! I won't justify myself to you of all people for what I did. I did what had to for my…"

"Yah we've herd it all before. You did it for me and mom and the company!" Claire interrupted.

"Did he ever tell you how many times he's erased your mom's brain? Huh Noah! Have you told Claire how you can look like the perfect dad because all you have to do is erase the bad memories?"

"You shut up right now Elle."

"Or what? Tell me Hrg how many times did you erase my memories? Is that why I'm all screwed up?" Elle demanded.

Cyrus stepped forward.

"Elle's here to save you Noah. But just for the record would you like to see your life through different eyes?"

Noah squirmed, but Elle pinned Hrg to the bookcase.

"I have no interest in your religious mumbo jumbo! Bob was right; there's no place for religion in the company."

Cyrus touched Noah on the head and suddenly his head was filled with images of his life, but with each image came another image of how his actions impacted on other people's lives. Noah watched as person after person was captured, tortured, murdered, and mind-erased. Noah watched as he erased his wife's mind time after time. Noah saw alternative lives that instead of being joyful and productive, they ended in tragedy. Noah watched as his own actions destroyed lives including the well being of his own family. Noah watched Sylar vacillate from good and evil, he saw Elle desperately seeking her father's approval and turned to Noah for help she never received, Noah saw how Elle became a cold blooded killer because of Noah! Elle wasn't a killer. She was taught to kill and be distant. Noah called it _'Field Objectivism.'_

Noah's eyes bulged. He gurgled out words of remorse and terror. Noah saw alternative lives of joy that were crushed by him, he saw that evil was something he dealt in like a drug dealer. Noah squirmed but Elle held him at bay with lethal blue light reflecting off Noah's face, her hand firmly around his thick neck. Noah saw finally how he helped turn Elle and Sylar into killers. He saw Elle's plans for a school. He saw Elle as a mother.

Noah became silent.

"No one's judging you Noah. But you might ask yourself: Who will?" said Cyrus.

Cyrus was glowing like a candle with wisps of white flames rising from him. Noah could not move yet Cyrus was touching him as lightly as a butterfly.

"Who are you?" blurted Noah falling to his knees prostrate and defeated.

With that thought Elle saw something on the bookshelf. It was the same Bible as in her library, the same bible her father had, and now it was here. Noah was not a religious man? To the contrary: religion to him was a weakness.

Elle pulled the large volume off the bookshelf.

"What is this?" she looked down and asked Noah again.

"What is this?"

"It's a bible illustrated by a special. A harmless prophet named Sigurd Bukoski he knew your father: He's Hungarian. The whole thing is written in Magyar, it's not even a Bible it's a rambling rewritten history of Biblical events."

"Why is everyone so keen on having this bible?" demanded Elle.

"Sigurd sent us all copies three years ago." Noah said rubbing his electrified singed neck.

"He said the answers we were looking for were in his apocrypha."

"They were printed in 1961. It doesn't make sense, it rewrites history."

"So why keep them?" Elle asked.

"Only a few thousand were ever printed. They're worth a fortune to collectors for Sigurd's ilustrations. His super-realism is sought after by collectors. He never sold his art except for this book. "

Elle held the leather volume in her hand and pointed it to Cyrus.

"Do you know Cyrus?" Elle asked. "What was Sigurd telling us?"

"This is Sylar's destiny not yours Elle."

Elle's eyes widened.

"Sylar is my destiny. He's the father of my baby. A boy right? Isn't that what you saw in my future a boy and a girl? A girl that looks like me, and a boy that looks like, like …Sylar?" Elle finally uttered.

"I told you all I can Elle." Cyrus insisted.

"Noah is this man Sigurd Bugoski still alive?"

"Yes he lives outside Budapest in a monastery. He's in his 90s."

"Hiro can you get us there?"

Hiro nodded and bowed. "You no use Blue Lightening Miss Elle."

Elle nodded in frustration and turned to Cyrus.

"Elle if Sylar comes here he will kill Noah. I've seen it." Said Cyrus.

"Hmmm. See Noah how shooting people is sometimes actually a bad thing!" Elle said sarcastically. "Things like that can come back to bite you!" Elle chided. "Any reason you can think of why I should help you Noah? Because I don't know why I would? I'm thinking maybe you're the real problem: not Sylar? I'm pretty sure I could figure out how to cut open your head and leave you dead on a deserted beach like Sylar tried to do to me!" Elle said quite seriously.

"I can help specials Elle. I know how to deal with them."

"No Noah. You don't! You really don't know the first thing about what we want to do. But I'm going to teach you, starting with Sylar." Elle said with authority.

"Hiro would you please take Noah and the others somewhere safe, and then come back here?" Elle asked.

"I know place." Hiro said smiling.

As Hiro approached Noah, Noah slipped his cell phone into his pocket. Then Hiro touched him.

In a flash everyone was gone and almost instantly Claire and Hiro returned.

"Cheerleader girl come with us." Hiro said.

"I want to help Elle. I don't know what my dad did to you but I didn't have anything to do with it. I need to do this Elle." Claire begged.

"I'm not even sure where we are even going or what we are doing? But I think this book has some answers." Elle said holding it.

"Hiro can you find this man Sigurd Bugoski?"

Hiro nodded and again there was a brilliant white flash of light. Cyrus, Elle and Claire were instantly standing in a dark monastery in a tower filled with art supplies, paints and paintings. At the dais was an elderly man writing in Cyrillic. He turned and looked at the three interlopers and closed his tired eyes and said something that sounded a bit like Russian.

Cyrus calmly began talking with the man in Magyar: the traditional Hungarian-Romanian dialect. The old man stood slowly and walked over to Cyrus. He asked him something and waited patiently for the reply.

Cyrus simply said: "Cyrus" and the old man exhaled deeply and began to speak in English.

"You are Cyrus of Abraham?"

Cyrus nodded. His skin began to glow.

"The _shepherd of humanity_?"

Cyrus again nodded.

"Our time is near then?"

Cyrus nodded.

Sigurd knelt before Cyrus and kissed his hand.

Elle looked at Cyrus who was now giving off wisps of white vapor.

"Does he mean Abraham from like 2000 years ago?" asked Elle.

"More like 5000 years." Said Cyrus. "And Yes." He said quietly.

Elle tilted her head, and looked at Cyrus. He seemed to be almost meditative.

Claire and Hiro stared as well.

"I don't understand?" said Claire. "What's going on?"

"I don't know either?" Elle responded.

Hiro bowed to Cyrus.

"He very special. More special than us Cheerleader girl."

Claire cocked her head too and had a look of complete bewilderment on her face.

"I have something to show you." Said Sigurd leading them to some large paintings.

"I recognize these." Said Elle. They are the color plates in the Bibles you sent to the company.

Sigurd nodded and showed them all the paintings.

"I painted these in a vision. I was there: back in time. I saw these things happen."

Again Elle looked at the montage of images and marveled at their lifelike appearance.

"Sigurd, what are you trying to tell us?" Elle asked when suddenly she gasped. Her hands covered her mouth.

In the border surrounding the flocks of sheep and biblical figures were celestial beings. Angels surrounded by a glow, a halo, an aura of tongues of white fire. In the lower left was an angel that was unmistakably Cyrus.

Claire looked at the painting and saw it too.

"How can this be?" Claire asked Elle.

"Long before man ever walked this planet," explained Sigurd. "There has been a war raging in the heavens between good and evil. When man was born, humanity has been continually tempted and tested by the angels and the demons." Said Sigurd.

"How do you mean tested?" asked Elle.

"The battle between angels and fallen angels has spilled over onto man. Have you never wondered about special powers that defy natural laws and physics? Why do we have such powers and why now?" asked Sigurd rhetorically.

"It's genetic." Said Claire bluntly. "Isn't it?"

"These powers are supernatural. No gene can cause a man to fly or turn into water or change metal to gold." He explained with serious tones looking at Claire.

"Men are given gifts from the gods and yet they ask no questions? It is because they are not meant to see. They are being tested and so they are given no help to see the truth of the source or which direction to turn. They are prevented from seeing or believing in a celestial power."

"Celestial power?" asked Elle. "You mean God?"

"These power's Elle, not all of them come from God. Can you think of no other celestial source that tempts men to do evil?" he said solemnly.

"Each person with a special gift must decide if they choose the light or the darkness." Explained Sigurd.

"And what about Cyrus?" asked Elle.

"Cyrus is the shepherd of humanity. When humanity has been tested through the ages, Cyrus is sent to earth to find those who would prove to God the worthiness of man to spare the destruction of humanity."

Elle looked puzzled.

"The most famous that you know of is Sodom and Gomorrah: Two cities that were torn apart because of the misuse of special powers. But only these cities were tested, and they failed so they were destroyed." He said point blankly in a thick accent.

Are you saying Cyrus was at Sodom and Gomorrah?" Elle asked with her heart racing.

Sigurd nodded yes. "And many more times and places that have tested men and mankind."

Sigurd continued: "Cyrus is an angel. He is here to guide us, to make us choose for ourselves. But I fear this time more than two cities are being tested. It is all of humanity. The world is at stake." He said cryptically.

Elle shook her head. "No this can't be happening."

"You're and angel?" Elle asked Cyrus. "A real angel from the bible?"

"No Elle." He paused. "I was an angel."

Elle scrunched her face.

"Angels have no free will. We must serve the creator. But how we serve is up to us, we have freewill to choose how to best guide man to the light." Cyrus explained almost apologetically.

"I chose to become human, so I could understand the temptations of man."

"I was a test?" Elle asked.

"I came to save humanity Elle. I didn't know I would succumb to human feelings so deeply."

"What feelings?" Elle asked.

Cyrus paused.

"Love Elle. I became human to save humanity, but I stayed human too long because I loved you too much to go back, too much is at stake."

"What do you mean? You can't go back?" Elle demanded.

"I was human but I still had celestial spirit inside of me, but the longer I stay the weaker my abilities became. My ability for prophecy and alternative futures is almost completely gone. Soon I will lose the ability to speak all languages, and without the divine power I cannot go back. I will grow old and die."

Elle looked at Cyrus in bewilderment. Of all the things she had done in her life there was nothing that made her feel as unclean and unworthy than as of this moment.

"What of the other?" asked Sigurd.

"What other." Elle replied.

"There are always two to be tested a man and a woman. Where is the man?" Sigurd asked pointing to his painting.

Claire looked where Sigurd was pointing.

"Elle! Elle! You need to see this. I mean right now!" exclaimed Claire.

Sigurd's finger was on a second celestial angel. One whose image was unmistakable: It was Sylar.

Elle dropped to her knees.

"How is this possible?" Elle said incredulously. "How can Sylar be in a painting from 5000 years ago?" she exclaimed.

"Just as Angels can fall, they can ascend Elle. But to do so they have to give up all free will and want to serve eternally. Gabriel must ascend or he can and will use his free will to destroy the world." Cyrus said. "Sylar will cause the death of his son, and destroy the world. I have seen it." Cyrus said.

"Sylar is THE ANGEL GABRIEL! The one in the bible. The one every child knows by name?" asked Elle.

"If he chooses it to be. Or man will cease to exist."

"But these things happened in the Bible thousands of years ago!" Elle exclaimed.

Cyrus smiled.

"Time and space are not the same for Gabriel and me. We are not bound by the laws of nature or man." He said almost dogmatically.

"He right Miss Bishop. I break the laws of time and space. I violate nature. Is true." Hiro said happily.

Elle lowered her head. "I cannot ask you to stay Cyrus. If you can leave you should go back." Elle said choking out the words.

"I can go back Elle, but remember I have free will now and I am choosing to stay."

"Why?" Elle pleaded.

"Because of you Elle; and Gabriel is my friend. I have to stay."

"But why?" Elle asked.

"Because someone must raise Gabriel's son. I want it to be me." Cyrus said. "I want us to raise him." He added.

"Oh Elle!" Claire beamed. "I can't believe this is happening. You're the chosen one not me."

"The test of humanity is always to tempt those who have equally chosen evil over good. Elle and Gabriel were chosen."

"I can't be."

"It would not be a test if it was easy Elle. But the choice for Sylar is now much harder. He is being influenced by powerful forces of evil. There is no longer balance in his life. He must give up free will or destroy the planet."Cyrus explained.

"How do we make him choose Cyrus?"

"Not use blue lightening." Said Hiro.

Elle looked at Hiro perturbed at his glibness.

"You have a better weapon Elle." Cyrus paused. "Love."

"Love? In sylar. Yes love for you, love for his baby, and love for his mother. Have you not asked what other power is at work here?"

Elle hesitated.

"Sylar's life was manipulated. He was the chosen embodiment of evil. He was created by the darkest power and is being tested to overcome it. Every evil act gives him pleasure, every evil deed acts like a drug inside him. If he cannot give up his free will, the exponential power of evil within him will destroy the planet. The trigger will be seeing the death of his son." Explained Cyrus.

Elle looked at Cyrus and felt her stomach. "What do you mean death of our son?"

"If Sylar does not give up his powers, he will take his son from you. His enemies will force him to take action and he will accidentally kill is own son. I have seen it, Peter Petrelli is there when it happens."

Elle turned white.

She did not want Sylar's baby but now she wanted it so badly: If for no other reason for the fact that Cyrus wants to raise his friend's baby with her.

Elle knelt before Cyrus.

"I can't do this alone." She said kissing his hand and holding it to her cheek.

"You won't be alone Elle." Cyrus said kneeling beside her.

Claire knelt beside Elle and kissed her cheek. "You won't be alone."

Hiro knelt beside Elle and put his hand on her shoulder. "I too will be there with you."

Sigurd placed his hand on Elle's shoulder.

"I would speak with you alone please." He said in an exceptionally serious tone.

Elle rose and hugged her friends. She then silently followed Sigurd into another small room, an office of sorts but it looked more like a place where Merlin the magician would work.

Elle was nervous. Not since that night on the beach where she died had she been this nervous. Cyrus said he could not tell her everything, but Elle had no idea of the immensity of his secrets. Elle knew Cyrus was good from the first time she met him at the company years ago. In fact it had been just that that Elle so disliked about him. Good people made her nervous. Now she wished she had gone to church at least once on her life. What Elle knew about angels was from novels and movies, certainly not from reading the bible.

Sigurd sat at his desk and creaked and cracked like a bag of potato chips. He looked over at Elle and looked deathly serious.

"I have waited my whole life to meet the _shepherd of humanity_." He said flatly. "In my dreams, we are friends; As far as the human race goes he is the most important of all of the angels."

Elle nodded solemnly.

"Now he is human. Fragile. At risk of mortal sin."

Elle again nodded but was uncomfortable.

"If Gabriel does not choose to ascend, all of mankind is lost." He said gravely.

"Cyrus will have become human for nothing, and you will never see the things beyond this life because all of man will cease to exist and will never have existed."

Elle was again going to ask how this could be, but it was clear that she could not comprehend the answer. At the thought of never existing, a deep hollow emptiness suddenly filled Elle's body. Her very womb felt dark and empty. It was as though someone just drained all the life out of her soul.

Elle nodded nervously.

"You have made a bargain with God yes?" asked Sigurd. "I have seen it. I have painted it." He said placing a canvas across the desk of Elle in a church crying on the steps of the altar in Ireland."

Elle gulped.

"Are you prepared to keep your end of this bargain?" he asked seriously.

Elle swallowed hard and said: "I am."

"God will not spare you. But you must act without hesitation to save him. And I am not exaggerating when I say the world will need him after you and Gabriel are gone."

Elle felt sick. She now knew there was no getting out of it. She would die before her son was 7 years old and a daughter she would barely get to know will live without a mother.

"I will die for him. I will." She said with tears in her eyes.

"Good. But there is more."

Elle squirmed. She wanted to leave so bad to run, to hide, but where? How? All of heaven and earth was watching her. "More!" she thought to her self? What more is there?"

"If Gabriel chooses not to ascend there is another way to save humanity." He said coldly.

Elle looked into his cold eyes that were nearly blind from cataracts.

"How? What other way?" Elle asked hopefully.

"Do you not know?"

Elle looked at him blankly.

"No."

Sigurd shook his head as though Elle were not up to the task, or that she was too young. It was the look that her father often gave her. It was the look of predestined failure.

"If Gabriel chooses not to ascend; then you must give up free will and serve God in his place."

"You're kidding!" Blurted out Elle.

Sigurd through another canvas in front of her: It was the angel Gabriel announcing to the Virgin Mary that she would become with child. A child who would teach the world peace and love in place of hate and anger. The angel was without a doubt in the exact likeness of Elle.

Elle was silent. She was scared. She was terrified.

"But Gabriel will still blow up the world." Elle said defensively.

"Once you've ascended all ties to evil will end for Gabriel. He will literally be free of the demons that now plague him, that taunt him and tempt him. He will be set free to live." Explained the nearly blind prophet.

Elle nodded.

"I would make a terrible angel." She said with the complete absence of sarcasm.

"You would be reforged by his will to serve him without question."

"Why is the world even like this?"

"Because there is evil that is separate from good. It beckons us all. Humanity is the meeting ground of good and evil."

"When the time comes who will I be saving Cyrus from?" Elle asked with reverence.

"The oldest evil in the universe. A name I will not speak."

Elle was dizzy. She wanted to leave.

"Why will he attack us?"

"Because he hates Cyrus, and killing you will hurt him more than dying, but we still need Cyrus in the last battle of this millennium. "

"Why? Why do we need him?"

"Because he is _The Shepherd_. Even as a human he can send him back to the other place. When the test is over, there must be one who sends the powers back to the darkness."

Elle did not understand but she nodded.

"The dark one still knows he can defeat you. You must choose death or servitude, or he will win." Sigurd said.

"My time is short. I am sorry your father would not listen to me Elle." He said.

"You knew my father?"

"Before he changed his name. I tried to teach him to trust in a higher power to guide him. But he rejected my help, and my advice. Did you know the origin of the name _Bishop_ means administrator over teachers or biblically it means Apostle?"

Elle ignored his English lesson. "What do you mean changed his name? What was his name before?"

"My wife's name was Yoella, you were named after her. Your father's name is Julius Bugoski."

Elle froze.

"Your father could not accept what I told him. He would not accept that you had a destiny in the world. His love for you told him to protect you from this knowledge so that you would never try to be more than his daughter. But he could not stop destiny even if it took a fallen angel to convince you! Other powers were at work on your father because of you destiny."

Elle was enervated, spent, destroyed.

"My time is short. I am glad I met you before I die." He said sadly.

Elle took a few moments to collect herself. Sigurd rolled up several paintings, one was of her mother and grandmother together. He handed them to Elle. Elle had no words left to say.

Hiro took Elle's hand.

"Where do we go now Miss Bishop?"

"Take me to Sylar Hiro." She croaked.

"Take us all to Sylar, Hiro." Claire added.

There was a flash and Sylar cocked his head seeing Elle and Cyrus in front of him.

"Well this is convenient." Said Sylar smiling.

**_Chapter 6 (The Death of Elle Bishop) _**


End file.
